


Everything That Rises Must Descend

by Tiny_Dragongirl



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bond Mates, Established Relationship, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/pseuds/Tiny_Dragongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk and Spock spent a lifetime exploring space as bond mates and now they only wish to enjoy their declining years when a new illness claims Jim's health and memories. Nobody said it was going to be easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything That Rises Must Descend

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the almighty Giraffe, thank you very much.:-)

At first, Jim is angry and Spock is desperate because Jim wants Spock to do something but he can’t do anything. Jim hopes that their bond could help him somehow but Spock knows it can’t. Jim is slowly dying and his memories are fading into darkness and there is no power in the universe to bring them back. This illness is so new that even if the scientists find a cure one day, by then Jim will be long gone. He is old now, his body is tired - he is kind of all right with the dying part, but he feels that losing his memory might be more than he can handle.

‘I can’t let those memories go, Spock. I can’t imagine waking up and not recognising you. I don’t think I could live not knowing you. I don’t want to forget you.’ This is his mantra now. _I don’t want to forget you._

Spock always knew he would outlive his t’hy’la. He just never expected that things would turn out this way in the end.

Jim’s last days are like his first ones: blank pages. _  
_

The day comes when James Tiberius Kirk wakes up and doesn’t recognise his bond-mate anymore. He can’t remember anything, neither his mate, nor the Enterprise; he is just an old man now, lost without his memories. Spock decides to stay with him. They live in a retirement home to keep Jim under medical supervision but nobody really disturbs them - their life is peaceful. Sometimes they go for a walk in the garden but mostly Jim sits in his room, thinking. He often thinks aloud, talking to Spock, trying to engage him in a conversation.

‘I’m sorry to vex you all the time,’ he says once apologetically and his smile is so shy that it makes Spock’s heart wrench. ‘It just feels good to talk with you. I don’t even know you and yet I’m comfortable around you, funny, isn’t it?’ His mind can’t recognise the bond anymore but he can still feel its presence and his bond-mate’s heart is suddenly filled with warmth as he realises this. The sign must be very faint since his brain is a real mess by that time but it still keeps his t’hy’la content.

One day he asks Spock: ‘Do you think that this illness will actually kill me? Because sometimes I doubt it. I tend to think that it has more to do with the loss of my memories. That would be really vicious, an illness that makes you lose your memories until your heart can’t bear it anymore and gives up.’ Spock doesn’t answer, his chest is too tight and his half-human heart is just about to break.

The other day he is showing deep interest in xenobiology: ‘I must say you are a most extraordinary Vulcan. You seem to be sad about me. How is that even possible?’

But mostly he just tries to accept the inevitable: ‘I am losing my memories and I know it. I know it but I can’t do anything about it and it scares me. Here I am, an old man and yet I am scared like a child.’ He chuckles; a weak, half-hearty laughter. ‘Memories are literally irreplaceable. Have you ever lost something this important?’

‘I have lost...’ Spock wants to say _someone very close to me_ but his throat suddenly feels too constricted and he can barely find the words. ‘I have lost a... star.’

‘A star?’ Jim asks a bit confused, suspecting a hidden metaphor.

Spock never speaks in superlatives, that wouldn’t be accurate enough. However, for him his next words doesn’t feel as superlatives, not at all. ‘The brightest star in the whole universe. It shone so bright and rose so high like nothing else before.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘Everything that rises must descend.’

Every morning Spock is a complete stranger to him but by the end of the day Jim always learns to smile at the Vulcan. ‘Sorry, what was your name again?’

He might be only half-Vulcan but he never flinches at the question, his face never expresses any emotion and he never fails to answer: ‘My name is Spock.’

‘Spock. I like your name.’ smiles Jim. Spock takes a deep breath. The smile is heart-warming, the sigh is almost inaudible. ‘I like you, Nurse Spock. You are so good to me, though I must be really annoying, forgetting all the things. It’s strange how I can’t forget that I keep forgetting, if you know what I mean. Or am I talking like a complete gaga?’

‘I assure you that you are speaking most sensibly.’

Jim’s whole body is shaking with suppressed laughter before suddenly turning gravely serious. ‘I feel horrible for all those who were part of my life and I forgot them. This is the worst thing, and I think one day, not so long after my death, I will be forgotten, too.’

 _I won’t forget you._ This is Spock’s mantra now. It’s always and never the time to say it out loud.

‘I give thee my word that I will not abolish you from my memory,’ Spock promises too huskily and too quickly for a Vulcan. It gives enough courage for Jim to reach out and take his old, wrinkled hand.

‘We should have met when we were young,’ he says, gently squeezing Spock’s hand, his thumb nestled in the soft palm. ‘We should have.’

Jim’s last days are like his first ones: blank pages. His mind resists memory loss less and less, his body slowly letting go of the soul. Stars are getting colder and colder before completely dying out; the end is inevitable for all of them but their fate is different, and only massive stars turn into black holes. But no star is forgotten, not even the smallest one, because there is always that one creature of the universe who noticed it and remembers.


End file.
